ADVENTURE COMICS 333 (1965)
by Edmond Hamilton & John Forte
The Legion had its own Civil War waaaay before Marvel.
We begin with an archeological mission: Phantom Girl has discovered a tabled buried deep in the ground. Considering this is the 30th century they would consider an iPad an archeological find, but no, this is a stone tablet.
It turns out that the tablet is from Krypton, setting up the mystery of how it ended up there.
Even stranger, testing confirms that it’s millions of years old.
In the real world carbon dating only works accurately for objects up to 50,000 years, but considering this is Brainiac 5 and that for once they’re not coming up with fake science I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt.
Superboy wants to go to the past to investigate, but the Legionnaires decide to follow.
Interestingly, they put the decision up to a vote. It’s said to be unanimous and only Mon-El is said to be absent… except Shrinking Violet is very clearly labeled as “absent”.
The most straightforward way to investigate would simply stay at the place where the tablet was found, but the team is split in two: one on Earth and one on Krypton.
Superboy finds it odd that the past Krypton doesn’t show signs of the super-advanced civilization that he knows. Which, uhm… yes, what were you expecting?
I can understand if Krypton’s civilization is incredibly old, but come on, they had to start from something. Was Superboy under the impression that Krypton was a super-advanced civilization from the beginning of time?
I suppose Superboy’s doubt could come from the fact that since they’re not technologically advanced they couldn’t travel to Earth.
Fair enough. But Superboy (and Superman) are typically shown to very knowledgeable about Krypton’s past. It’s a bit odd that he has absolutely no idea of how old their civilization is.
Despite this being MILLIONS of years in the past, Superboy still manages to run into one of his ancestors. Maybe.
Turns out that in this era the vast majority of Krypton was against science…
…but that this community of scientists has a plan to leave their planet to colonize Earth.
The Legion volunteers to help them.
This raises a lot of problems.
First of all… in this era it’s firmly established that history can’t be changed: both Superboy and the Legion know this. Why help them if they know they can’t change history!?
But also: if this could change history, wouldn’t it erase Superboy’s origin?
Not to mention that having several super-powered Kryptonians running around in Earth’s past would obviously leave a huge impact on history.
It’s not like there’s an absolutely ridiculous reason for them not to have powers, right?
STARS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!!!
This is LITERALLY backward! Yellow stars become red stars as they get older, not the other way around!
This is especially baffling since writer Edmond Hamilton was also a science fiction writer. He should really, REALLY know better than this!
And to think that I was giving this story props for SOME scientific realism with the carbon dating scene. Shame on you, Hamilton!
Anyway, the settlers plant the totally not ridiculous flag of Krypton.
If you think the parallel to the American pilgrims is a little on the nose, you’re right.
While one half of the Legion is dealing with this nonsense, the other half reaches Earth’s past where they find a civilization.
After the sun thing I wouldn’t put past this comic to screw up Earth’s history, but there’s an explanation:
Yep! Bet you didn’t know that in the Silver Age Atlantis was founded by aliens.
Mostly because no other comic will ever mention this.
Of course the Legionnaires run into their teammates, and OF COURSE Superboy instantly falls in love with the first girl with the initials L.L. that he sees.
Since both Atlantis and Krypton now claim this land, Brainiac 5 and Saturn Girl get into a shouting match about which faction they have to support despite knowing these people for… what, a day?
It’s rare for characters drawn by John Forte to get this emotional, so it’s a pity that this comes out of nowhere.
They go so far as to ally themselves to each faction, although thankfully they will use nonlethal weapons.
Meanwhile L.L. is in love with Superboy (despite meeting him for five minutes at best), while Superboy can’t stop thinking about her initials.
During all this time the Atlanteans keep complaining that something isn’t right in the Earth’s atmosphere. Brainiac 5 investigates, but Chameleon Boy proves useful for the first time in like 30 issues by infiltrating the Kryptonian camp with his shapeshifting powers and learning their plans.
While the two factions fight, each one supported by half of the Legion, Saturn Girl also suddenly remembers how to use her powers effectively.
Phantom Girl’s plan is also ingenious: startle the super-strong Kryptonian dinosaurs to stampede their masters from the rear. Non-lethally, I suppose.
The Legion stops the dinosaurs, but the Kryptonians have a worse thing to deal with: the Atlanteans are not really using non-lethal weapons.
This ends up exactly as you would expect: the Kryptonians are ready to use deadly weapons too.
Superboy volunteers to sneak into Atlantis to discuss this with L.L. And if you thought that he’d be ineffective without his powers, THINK AGAIN.
We don’t get to see what L.L. tells him, but we do hear why Atlanteans have trouble with Earth’s atmosphere.
Xenon is only 0.0000087% of Earth’s atmosphere, if you’re curious.
This is apparently too much for the Atlanteans, but Brainiac 5 has a solution: turn these aliens into mermaids.
Sounds legit.
Krypton’s retaliation is to fire a nuclear missile at Atlantis (!!!), but Superboy saves them.
Except it wasn’t Superboy because literally next panel:
Was that really necessary? Does Mon-El have a contract mandating an appearance?
We have reached the last page, so we need to fix a couple of hanging threads. First, it turns out that the Atlanteans didn’t really wish to kill the Kryptonians…
…and also we need to sink Atlantis.
Wait, they’ve ALREADY turned themselves into mermaids!?
If they have the means to change their biology THAT quickly, why couldn’t they make themselves able to breathe Xenon!?!?
And we close by finding out that this entire war could’ve been avoided by real archeologists.
I know just the guy for the job.
Legion significance: 0/10
Despite the major revelations about Krypton and Atlantis, this has no impact whatsoever.
Silver Age-ness: 8/10
Without the red Sun, this could easily be a 3/10. But that’s just unforgivable, and it’s not a minor detail that could be forgiven… without it, the story wouldn’t work.
Does it stand the test of time? 7/10
This is a flawed story. There are some silly concepts and major contrivances. And yet… if given some space to breathe, this could easily be adapted into a great story.
Change the Kryptonians with some other alien race to avoid the red Sun nonsense, give a little more weight for the motivation of both factions, and the story pretty much writes itself.
We are legion
12 Legionnaires active in this story
7 not shown but officially members
1 reserve member: Bouncing Boy
2 resigned member: Dream Girl, Command Kid
1 honorary member: Elastic Lad
1 deceased member: Dynamo Boy
How much Legion is too much?
The Legion has 19 active members. The total number of characters who have been members is 24.
This was the second Legion story I ever read, and it remains a personal favorite despite some obvious flaws. I suggest that it would be a very different story if some other race besides Kryptionians were used. The Kryptonian connection gives Superboy a personal stake in solving the mystery. It also makes the final fate of the Kryptionians deeply personal and tragic. After being treated as outcasts at home, they had come all this way to start a new society only to be wiped out by the animals they had brought to earth.
I also appreciated the realism of the war escalating due to a misunderstanding. Another tragic outcome. This story reminds me of “A Taste of Armageddon,” the Star Trek episode in which two worlds fought a “bloodless” war by having citizens voluntarily incinerate themselves when their cities were “hit” by computer-simulated missiles. Both stories suggest it is not possible to have a contained war.
Mon-El’s costume switch with Superboy was necessary, as I understood it, because the image of a Kryptonian hero saving the enemy from a Kryptonian weapon was meant to shock everybody into ceasing hostilities. Fortunately, the Kryptonians were so impressed that one of them had super-powers that no one yelled “Traitor!”
There are problems such as the Legionnaires readily choosing sides in the conflict, the red sun, the sinking of Atlantis (who knew Star Boy was that powerful!), ad nauseum. I agree that if given more space to work out these kinks, the story would still hold up very well today.
Obviously, Hamilton had to come up with some way for the Kryptonians not to have super powers. The red sun was the easiest way out… he probably knew better but what other explanation would work? A bigger error I see is the continents looking exactly the same as today. Millions of years ago the landmasses would be totally different. Also, I’m not bothered by the extremely low concentration of xenon, as its negative effects might be cumulative. What bothers me more is that merpeople still breathe the air, it’s just dissolved in water. The xenon would still be there.